Reported Speech Questions

 

Reported questions are one form of reported speech   

direct question	reported question
She said: "Are you cold?"	She asked me if I was cold.
He said: "Where's my pen?"	He asked where his pen was.

We usually introduce reported questions with the verb "ask":

• He asked (me) if/whether... (YES/NO questions)
• He asked (me) why/when/where/what/how... (question-word questions)

As with reported statements, we may need to change pronouns and tense (backshift) as well as time and place in reported questions.

But we also need to change the word order. After we report a question, it is no longer a question (and in writing there is no question mark). The word order is like that of a normal statement (subject-verb-object).

Reported YES/NO questions

We introduce reported YES/NO questions with ask + if: 

direct question	She said,	"Do you like coffee?"
reported question	She asked	if I liked coffee.

Note that in the above example the reported question has no auxiliary "do". But there is pronoun change and backshift.

Note that we sometimes use "whether" instead of "if". The meaning is the same. "Whether" is a little more formal and more usual in writing:

• They asked us if we wanted lunch.
• They asked us whether we wanted lunch.

CHECK THIS VIDEO OF REPORTED SPEECH QUESTION!